Over recent years, personal communications devices ranging from mobile phones to electronic diaries and beyond have moved from being elite items to everyday tools. In all these years, however, the design criteria for the casing for the pieces of equipment have not really changed.
Communications devices of this type have casings designed with ease of assembly, durability, and cost, amongst other things in mind. From the first, casings have typically been formed from moulded parts as these lend themselves particularly to automated manufacture and can be easily automatically clipped together for assembly. The plastic materials used are also relatively flexible and consequently resilient against the knocks and drops that will inevitably be encountered by a highly utilized personal portable device. The design criteria have led to similar types of casing being used for all such devices.